Brahui

Brahui, tribal confederacy of Balochistān, in western Pakistan. Its members are mostly nomadic goat herdsmen, distributed from the Bolān Pass through the Brāhui Hills to Cape Muarī on the Arabian Sea. The Brahui language is a far northwestern member of the Dravidian family of languages, all of whose other members are spoken in peninsular India; it has borrowed heavily from Sindhi but remains in unexplained isolation among the surrounding Indo-Iranian dialects, to which it bears no genetic relationship. The Brahui are estimated to number about 1,560,000.

Physically the Brahui resemble their Baloch and Pashtun neighbours, for the confederacy has been highly absorptive. They are Muslim by creed and Sunnite by sect, though the Muslim rites overlie essentially Indian social customs. Women are not strictly secluded.

The 29 tribes owe a loose allegiance to the Brahui khan of Kalāt, which has long been associated with the confederacy’s destinies. A group of eight tribes forms what is believed to be the original Brahui nucleus and constitutes about one-eleventh of the Brahui population. To these nuclear tribes have been affiliated many indigenous and captive peoples.

The Brahui rose to power in the 17th century, overthrowing a dynasty of Hindu rajas. Under Naṣīr Khān, the confederacy attained its zenith in the 18th century. Their subsequent history centred on the state of Kalāt, which joined Pakistan in 1948.